harbingers of the apocalypse, crank professors of human nature, and artists who make nothing: they float desperately in a sea of pornography and materialism. a few communicate at a virtual place called MindVox. gone to heroin and the vicissitudes of life for years, these souls occasionally grunt and burp to online life and recede again. here is a selection of their latest musings:

Sunday, February 13, 2005

those hot august nights; a person could do anything on nigths like those.

"Katie Karlson remembers that hot August night on her porch near the University of Michigan campus.

For the second time in six days a large man was approaching her house with his pants down, masturbating. The first time he had covered his face with a T-shirt. But this time she could see his face, and he was standing much closer at the end of her driveway, about 10 feet from the porch.

"I said to my friends, 'Oh my God, he's here again,' " said Karlson, a 21-year-old U-M senior from Ortonville. "This went from gross to threatening. We didn't know if he was coming after us."